Topic: Writing and Publishing
Content Area: English/Language Arts
Grade: 3rd

Objectives
The students will be able to:
- create their own stories
- combine pictures and words to create books
- add sound to movie maker productions
- follow along while a story is being read


Description
In this activity students will listen to and view a story which can be found online at storyline online. The students will be able to vote, as a class, on which story to hear. Students will view the reading and then the class, as a whole, will discuss the story. We will then begin discussing story making and what is needed to create a story. Students will then be asked to work in groups of 2-3 to create their own stories. They will begin by writing the story using Zoho. They will then create pictures to go along with the story. Finally, students will use Windows Movie Maker to put animation and sound to their stories.The students will be assisted by the teacher in creating their story, using Windows Movie Maker and recording sound, as well as scanning images into the computer if needed. A sample story can be seen here listed under assignment eight.



Rationale
I will use storyline online in order to have students view an example of what they will be doing later in the assignment. This also is a change from students being read a story by their teacher which may make it more exciting. This can help students who suffer from ADD and AD/HD because they can start and stop the story based upon their attention span. This would help the students achieve my objective that they follow along while a story is being read. Also, because the program offers captioning, students with hearing impairments can also follow along while the story is being read. Students will use Zoho to create their stories so that multiple students can write and edit the same document at once. This encourages cooperative learning. Students will use Windows Movie Maker to put pictures and sound together in a PowerPoint type show. Windows Movie Maker will allow students to add narration or sound to their story. If students add narration, they can improve their public speaking skills.



Evaluation
The students will be evaluated based on their completion of the project. Students' participation will be monitored through Zoho, and the final products will be showed to the class. The projects will be evaluated based on whether or nor they make sense and that the illustrations enhance the stories. The programs used will be evaluated by the students on ease of use. The whole class will talk about each tool and what they liked and did not like about each program. Based upon their responses, I will determine whether or not I would use programs similar to these in the future.